By Racism strikes again here in the Great White North, otherwise known as Canada. It seems that when you are backed into a corner, punched and have a racial slur thrown at you, acting in your own defence is an illegal activity – if you are of Asian descent. Everyone knows that the laws exist to protect “real Canadians” (read: whites).
When the Asian student was backed into a corner after being verbally abused and assaulted he responded with a punch that broke his abusers nose. Even though he is a black belt he displayed restraint by only using his left hand to defend himself. When the violence finally ended, it was not the initiator that found himself suspended and facing criminal charges.
The students attend a school where only ten Asians are registered. Keswick is also an area that is not known to be very accepting of anyone who is not white. There is also a history of what has become known of as “nipper tipping,” which is the tossing of Asian fishermen into the lake followed by the destruction of their fishing gear. The term nipper tipping is a combination of the WWII epithet for the Japanese and the childish prank of tipping sleeping cows.
The violence and racism against the Asian Canadian community led to an investigation by the Ontario Human Rights Commission. According to The Star,
“York Region and Ontario Provincial Police received special praise for increasing presence in areas where incidents of harassment had been reported. The two services also started a poster campaign titled Fish Without Fear, which provided anglers of all backgrounds with safety tips.”
Considering that incidents of violence against the Asian community are still occurring it seems to be premature to issue praise. Shayne Berwick would spend months in the hospital after the initial attack left him in a coma.
If children are acting like this, it is because adults have taught them that racism is acceptable. How is it possible that the child that initiated the conflict at Keswick High School has yet to be suspended or face criminal charges? Oops, I forgot, he’s white. The justice system functions largely to protect white privilege and punish bodies of color. Examining the disproportionate rates of incarceration make this more that evident.
The country that drafted the United Nations Declaration of Human Rights is rife with racism. When Premier Jean Charest assigned a travelling commission to examine racism in Quebec residents took the opportunity to express their thoughts freely:
“When I’m in Montreal, I don’t feel at home when I see these veiled women on Côte-des-Neiges and Côte-St-Catherine,” said Micheline Bélanger at the hearings in Rimouski. “I feel like I’m in Saudi Arabia, and I shouldn’t. This is my country.” [source]
The little salad bowl adopted multiculturalism in 1971 with the guiding principle being reasonable accommodations. As the population begins to diversify, accommodations are seen as threatening to the white majority.
In an SES poll conducted by Institute for Research on Public Policy revealed that only 18% thought that it was reasonable to accommodate religious and cultural minorities. 45% said that there should be no accommodation in the workplace and finally a striking 53% felt that immigrants should adapt to Canada’s culture.
Though whiteness is the majority in Canada, the country is made up of people of various races, religions and ethnicities. Many families have resided her for generations and still retain aspects of their religion or culture that they find important. What is presented as an accommodation is false because these ideologies, religions, practices and races already exist within our borders. The issue really comes down to whiteness – understanding that though it is the majority, it does not represent all of Canada nor does it have the right to speak on behalf of all of its citizens.
5 Comments
God Bless America, where we have a black president and gay marriage in four states.
So I guess you don’t care about places like Hawaii where whites are treated like garbage. Why don’t you go look it up? Racism exists in every culture and every race. Stop pushing for hatred of whites.
Why don’t you look xenophobia in South Africa against Zimbabweans? or racism in Saudi Arabia or even in United Emirates (where they trat as slaves the inmigrants and have no rights), you just look countries where there is a white people. Why don’t you call racism when asians or african americans pointed out against whites? or when assault or kill us?
You Stole Our Sacred Land! All You White Devils
Get The Hell Out of Our HomeLand!
Native Indian of Canada
THIS MOMENTOUS DAY!
Not one day in anyone’s life is an uneventful day, no day without profound meaning, no matter how dull and boring it might seem, no matter whether you are a seamstress or a queen, a shoeshine boy or a movie star, a renowned philosopher or a Down’s syndrome child.
Because in every day of your life, there are opportunities to perform little kindnesses for others, both by conscious acts of will and unconscious example.
Each smallest act of kindness – even just words of hope when they are needed, the remembrance of a birthday, a compliment that engenders a smile – reverberates across great distances and spans of time, affecting lives unknown to the one whose generous spirit was the source of this good echo, because kindness is passed on and grows each time it’s passed, until a simple courtesy becomes an act of selfless courage years later and far away.
Likewise, each small meanness, each thoughtless expression of hatred, each envious and bitter act, regardless of how petty, can inspire others, and is therefore the seed that ultimately produces evil fruit, poisoning people whom you have never met and never will.
All human lives are so profoundly and intricately entwined – those dead, those living, those generations yet to come – that the fate of all is the fate of each, and the hope of humanity rests in every heart and in every pair of hands.
Therefore, after every failure, we are obliged to strive again for success, and when faced with the end of one thing, we must build something new and better in the ashes, just as from pain and grief, we must weave hope, for each of us is a thread critical to the strength – the very survival – of the human tapestry.
Every hour in every life contains such often-unrecognized potential to affect the world that the great days for which we, in our dissatisfaction, so often yearn are already with us; all great days and thrilling possibilities are combined always in THIS MOMENTOUS DAY! – Rev. H.R. White
Excerpt from Dean Koontz’s book, “From the Corner of His Eye”.
It embodies the idea of how the smallest of acts can have such a profound effect on each of our lives.